"It's a gevaldige zach..."Rav Ephraim Kirshenbaum excitedly remarked as he returned the cellphone to its owner. This morning, Erev Shabbos right before Shevuos, I remembered the Rav saying this as I had a rare sense of appreciation for my own phone. In the rush of the day, my trusty cellphone helped me accomplish an impressive array of tasks and for a brief moment I shared the Rav's appreciation for this fine piece of modern technology.

What is the secret of his unusual appreciation? It is very simple; as implied before, he doesn't own a cellphone. He therefore doesn’t use one regularly. This allows him the simple wonderment that maybe we all once had.

Someone recently sent me a wonderful article called '50 Reasons We're Living Through the Greatest Period in World History'. It listed many amazing advantages about the times we live in. Things like... being alive! If this piece was written in 1805 those of us above the age of 39 couldn’t read it as we statistically wouldn’t be living. In the 1930's, 5% of us would not have made it past infanthood.More recently, in 1950 close to 30% of us wouldn't have the revolutionary benefit of electricity in our homes. Take a second to appreciate your light bulb you. What would it be like to not have electricity at home? As I write, I am very much enjoying the fine air conditioning in my study. As recently as 1973, chances are I wouldn't have had an air conditioner in any room of my house. Can you imagine living without a/c?

Do you realize that adjusted to inflation, it is 50% cheaper to fly today than in 1978, that relative to hourly wages the price of a new car has fallen fourfold since 1915 and as opposed to 1960 when a single three-minute phone call from NY to SF cost $12.66, today you can get unlimited talk, text and data for a measly $5 a month!

We all know the secret of happiness is appreciating what we have. The aforementioned article taught me a new focus for our appreciation. If we can learn to be thankful for even some of the special conveniences and improvements of our times we would be full of joy. This is an important, new playing field for hakaras hatov.

Maybe HaShem gave us all these fantastic things in order to help us connect to Him in these often difficult and hidden times. It would be a highly worthwhile exercise to list 10 ways you feel fortunate to live in the times you do and to review (and add to) that list once a day for three weeks. This will accustom us to this new way of thinking.Once that pattern is set one can continue building upon it and gain a constant, new found appreciation for the every-day amazing things that surround us and be more appreciative and happier than ever before.